Ethical Failures In Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is successful in many facets of its duties and responsibilities. Even with all of the success law enforcement is able to accomplish, there are some ethical failures where improvement can be made. Examples of some ethical failures would be the code of silence, a conscience lack of team work amongst agencies, or leadership failing to remember, while they have a duty to the public, they also have a duty to their line level personnel. Leadership failures have a sweeping impact on the department as a whole and the entire community. Today’s society puts a tremendous amount of pressure on line level officers. Officers have expressed it does not matter what they do they are wrong even when the choices made are correct based on their training. Then the scrutiny is compounded by the media reporting a biased view of a situation instead of a comprehensive account. Today’s officer does not have the luxury of just enforcement of the law. Today’s officer is expected to be the community spokes person on and off duty, the role model on and off duty, crime scene expert, an expert in ever changing case law, an expert in driving, marksmanship, defensive tactics, a parent to everyone’s children, and an expert in the thousands
The hiring process for a law enforcement agency is crucial to its success. The hiring process is the first step in either obtaining or creating an outstanding officer or the first step in creating a future disappointment. If a department hires the officer who’s integrity is beyond reproach and has a passion for law enforcement then you are on your way to creating a “cop’s cop.” Conversely, if a department hires an uninspired questionable officer, then they have created a career long problem at best. The worst case scenario is an officer who gives law enforcement a black eye across the